Just call me a visionary

Spent the last couple days on Kindle Create. I set up the docx file of “Zeppelins” so its available as an ebook on Amazon KDP. Took me awhile to get there as the Ridgeway Press released the paperback in late May. I was conjuring ways to promote my book set in 1919 Colorado. It’s a bit strange to be living on the fringes of Florida wetlands but pining for the Rocky Mountains. Doesn’t help that Florida summers are hot and soupy. I spend most of the time in AC. It reminded me of depths of Wyoming winters, spending most of my time in heated spaces. Here people pine for the cool of winter and Wyomingites get spring fever as they wait and wait for the day when the short spring turns into summer. I used to swoon in late March when spring threatened. I mourned June 21, the longest day of the year, in which Rocky Mountain summer would begin to fade. Now I’m all turned around.

It is my good fortune that I can now see the changing seasons. Dr. K removed the filters from my eyes and gave them new lenses. No more cataracts. I’m reading my own novel in its proper form and not in final manuscript form in large print on a high-contrast screen. It’s miraculous, is it not, that this can be done? It was expensive. I spent all of my book-buying funds for the next 25 years which would take me to the nice round number of 100. But what good are books if you can’t see?

I thought little about my eyes until my 40s. I was in a dark restaurant holding the menu at arm’s distance. My work colleague remarked that I needed glasses. Poppycock, I said, or something like it.  She handed me her reader glasses and told me to bring the menu closer. I did. I could see the type. “Gimme back my glasses,” she said, now holding her menu at arm’s length. I bought readers the next day. They’re called this because it’s the reading that begins to blur.

When you’re a kid, you hold books up to your face or even at arm’s length and you can see fine. It helps that the text is short and simple. “See Dick Run. See Dick fall. See Spot bark. See Sally laugh.” Easy, right? But then come chapter books and assigned books and books my parents are reading but hide away. “Not for kids,” Dad said. I learned to read in earnest when I dug those books out of his underwear drawer. They were not necessarily books on the Catholic Church forbidden list. But some had bad words, such as “fug” in “From Here to Eternity.” There also was kissing and groping on the Oahu beach, at least in the movie.

I thank all of the doctors and researchers who brought us to this point. I know Salk and Sabin and Madame Curie are tough to remember when RFK Junior’s scary face comes on Fox. There’s a prescription for that: “Don’t watch Fox!"

In Memoriam: Wendell Berry, 1934-2026

Rest In Poetry, Wendell Berry. He died Aug. 31 and
this is a bit late in coming. But I liked this image by
Theo the Catholic Worker. It says so much. 

A good time for historical novelists to get on holiday shopping lists

Research is the best part of writing a book such as my novel Zeppelins Over Denver. On second thought, the best part of writing a book is a reader buying it and saying: "I loved it." Even better is when  the book shows up in a New York Times reading list or another outlet putting you on "Ten Best Books for the Holidays!" or "Ten Best Historical Novels With Zeppelins." Experts tell me to get on holiday lists before the appearance of pumpkin lattes (oops -- too late).

A friend in Virginia read the book and said it should be a movie. I agreed, asked him if he knew any Hollywood Movers and/or Shakers. He said he knew a guy in Santa Barbara who worked on craft crew serving sandwiches and snacks to actors. That may be as close as I come to the silver screen.

Thus far, I've received three reviews on Amazon. Editors say that upping the algorithms increases your visibility. I went to Amazon's Alexa for Shopping and, feeling frisky and wearing shades to mask my identity, asked if there are actual zeppelins in this novel. Here's her/its/their reply: 

That's a great question! Unfortunately, my web search didn't turn up specific plot details about actual zeppelins appearing in Zeppelins Over Denver. Based on the 1919 setting, real zeppelins were very much part of the cultural moment — Germany had used them extensively in WWI for bombing raids, and they were still a symbol of both wonder and threat in the public imagination at that time. The title likely refers to that era of airship anxiety and fascination rather than a literal zeppelin flying over Denver — but it could well feature them as a plot element or symbol. Since you've purchased it multiple times, you may know better than I do! 

Snarky Alexa AI knows my buying habits! Yes, I have ordered a couple copies for friends and also to keep an eye on the layout that went astray in the first printing with Ingram Spark. It’s perfectly readable now, thanks to my publisher, The Ridgeway Press of Michigan. Feel free to look it up.

But all is well. From this point forward, I will order copies of my novel when someone goes to Venmo and replenishes my publishing account: @hummingbird-minds. I would also be pleased if you bought a copy from bookshop.org or via Resistance Books in Jacksonville. Yes, I admit I am in cahoots with Amazon and received last night at my darkened doorway a shipment of Biotene lozenges, Dude Wipes, and all-occasion greeting cards. I also am part of The Resistance (see the sidebar) and, if you care about Florida in particular and the USA in general, you should be too.

I am contemplating a Substack site. There are so many 'stackers out there that I could get lost in the shuffle. I found an old colleague's Substack and subscribed. The site belongs to Leslie Petrovski and it's called NAKEID. I had one heck of a time explaining the debit to my wife who keeps track of such things. Here's Leslie's description of her site:

A weekly newsletter about knitting, style, and ripening into a new life stage. The not-so-young one.

I liked Leslie's Sept. 6 cross-post by Lindsay Sword because it opened this way: "Someday I want to publish a novel." Lindsay goes on to say she wants to be a romance novelist. I will let her explain the tie-in between romance writing and fashion. You should read it. I have been in writing groups with successful romance writers and they all write better (and dress better) than I do.

Check out NAKEID. Support your favorite writers.

Find out how the Een Sisters got from Pomeroy, Ohio, to the pages of my book

Agnes McDermott (left) looks at you from Eden Park, Cincinnati, Sept. 22, 1913. Her sister, whom we called "Auntie," is beside her. This is the  look Grandma Agnes gave me when I wore my ballcap into her house or messed with the doilies on the armrests of her couch.

Three 1913 photos of Agnes and her sister in Eden Park. "Zeppelins Over Denver" rises in the background.

I am a big fan of the Writer's Guides written by the WPA's Federal Writers' Project during the 1930s.
Most attention has been paid to the state guides but some cities also got the same treatment.

I was researching the scribbled handwriting on photos of my grandmother, Agnes McDermott, taken of her and her sister in the city's Eden Park. The ink has faded but I could read "Cincinnati Ohio" but what I thought was Edeu Park was Eden Park (thanks Google), one of the city's oldest parks. Someone crossed out part of the date but I found Sept. 22, 1913 on the middle photo (see above). A search brought me the Cincinnati Guide, "compiled by workers in the Writers' Program of the Works Progress Administration in the State of Ohio." Pub date shows 1943 which isn't an oddity as some didn't make it to print during the Great Depression. 

My role as eldest in a large family led to my office becoming repository of family lore. I like being surrounded by family. Photos await sorting as do books and military medals and souvenirs such as Lieutenant Shay's gas mark and flare pistol from his service as a cavalry officer in The Great War. I write on his desk, where he wrote many MONY insurance policies and is wooden filing cabinet where they were stored. My sister Molly sent them to me as she sorted through a life in a two-story family home in Tallahassee to an apartment in Decatur, Ga. We also got her silverware including tiny little forks that I hand to friends and family when they ask for a fork which tickles me but doesn't always get a similar response. I am surrounded by books. Some are mine, others are from my father's presidential library which he divided among his five sons. I have books upon books from a life as a writer, reader, and literary arts administrator. Should one of Elon Musk's spaceships go awry at the Cape and wipe out Ormond Beach, nobody will know our history.

I write this because my grandmother with the steely gaze and her sister inspired characters in my historical novel. In "Zeppelins," they become the Een Sisters (Colleen, Pegeen, and Ireen) of Pomeroy, Ohio. Looking for adventure, the Eens get in their Model T and head West. Grandma and her sister and two friends did the very same thing in the year after the war. Grandma Agnes and sister stayed in Denver; their friends returned to Ohio. I often wondered what inspired the trip. Agnes was nearing age 30 and her sister was older. She had been postmistress in Mason, Ohio, in the years before the war.  They drove mostly unpaved roads to Colorado. We have photos of the Ohio women and their Model T in the Rocky Mountains. Agnes met Martin, married, and had three strapping children, the middle one was my mother. 

The Een Sisters play a pivotal role in my book. Check it out. They appear in Chapter 10: Road Trip: The Een Sisters of Pomeroy, Ohio. Here's how it begins:

When the EEN sisters -- Colleen, Pegeen, and Ireen McCarthy -- decided to drive from Pomeroy, Ohio, to the Rocky Mountains in the summer of 1919, their adoptive parents were aghast. 

"You'll be attacked by highwaymen," said Uncle Mike. He and Aunt Sara had looked after them since their parents died in The Great Ohio River Flood of 1910.

"But Uncle Mike," said Colleen, who often served as the mouthpiece for the girls as she was the eldest, "there are no highwaymen in Ohio."

"Indians, then," said Aunt Sara. "On the prairies of the Wild West."

Pegeen, the middle sister, laughed. "The Indians are on reservations -- or dead from smallpox."

"Smallpox!" Aunt Sara put her hands to her mouth. "Disease, too?"

Ireen, the youngest, barely nine months behind Pegeen, said, "Diseases have all been wiped out. Except for the Spanish flu, of course."

Aunt Sara made the sign of the cross. "Blessed be. We're all thankful to be here."

Hit the link on the sidebar to find out what happens. You can also find me on Venmo.

I read my book for the first time

After a brisk PT workout and breakfast, I picked up a copy of “Zeppelins Over Denver” and read the first two chapters. That wouldn’t be big news because I imagined and wrote this historical novel. I’ve read, revised, and proof-read every word. It begins this way:

Patrick Michael Hott pulled his cap down on his forehead and slumped into the seat on the east side of the southbound train.

It goes on like that for another 403 bound pages. It’s a good story, even great at times, or so I’d like to think. Today’s reading is new in one way: it’s the first time I’ve read the actual softcover book published by The Ridgeway Press of Michigan and assembled at Ingram/Spark. I wrote the text, read it a dozen times at least. During the past year, as the manuscript went from proposal to acceptance and publishing, I was reading it on my PC in large type on a high-contrast screen. To read the printed page, I had to print it in 18-point Times Roman boldface. My sporty little printer had its hands full.

Cataracts muddied my sight. Everything looked fuzzy. I got prescription glasses but still couldn’t read typescript on the page. Early in the year, my ophthalmologist suggested cataract surgery. I ignored his advice. The book came out in May and I looked at the opening pages, beheld the muddy gray type, and sighed.

I went back for my next eye appointment and the doctor said the same thing. So I signed on, paid the hefty bill, and last week underwent surgery on the first eye, the second session set for Sept. 10.

This morning, I read the first two chapters in book form for the first time. I can see. My eyesight has improved on the left side, improved enough to put away my prescription eyeglasses and pick up the readers I bought off a Publix rack a year ago. I can remove the readers and see the 12-point TR type well enough to read it.

This is miraculous. Angels sang when I picked up my book and read. The type, which mysteriously turned gray during the past year, is now black on the page. Readable. Enjoyable. I look forward to my next visit to the ophthalmology surgical theatre, the surgeon hidden by drapes, the only thing in my eyesight are two tiny lights, my body numbed with chemicals. I know what he’s doing because I saw the video. Microsurgery with tiny tools. Old lens broken up, removed, and new lens inserted. I’ll spend the next day numbed and a bit sleepy, pirate patch over my eye. And the drops, the constant eye drops.

And then I will get back to reading my book. I may not read much further – I know how it ends. But you don’t. Buy it and find out.

What does a small-town Florida firehouse have to do with a two-story Wyoming outhouse?

On Tuesday, Aug. 18, I voted and got a history lesson. Can’t beat that, especially if you’re a writer and a curious human being which is sort of the same thing.

This wasn’t my first Florida vote. 

I voted by mail from Ormond-by-the-Sea prior to that dreary November day in 2024. 

Trump and SCOTUS are now working overtime to halt mail-in voting. So I ventured to the polls in Flagler County for the 2026 primaries.

At 18, I was not eligible to vote in the 1968 Florida elections. The voting age was still 21.

The 26th Amendment fixed that. It became law on July 1, 1971. "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote."

So, in 1972, I was 21 and old enough to vote under old rules and new. I voted in a tiny church on Boston's Beacon Hill. I voted for the man from South Dakota, George McGovern, a decorated World War II bomber pilot and fierce antiwar candidate. I put McGovern over the top in Massachusetts. Alas, Massachusetts is not the center of the universe. Nixon's "Southern Strategy" ruled the day.

I heard the news while working graveyard shift at Shriners' Children's Hospital. Physician from Mass General came on rounds and said. "Nixon won! You hippies are in for it now!" Not sure who he was addressing. Couldn't be me -- I wore a wig to work.

Fifty years ago, when I was a UF student a month away from graduation, I cycled over to my polling place in Gainesville and cast a vote for Jimmy Carter. Chip Carter had come to town and dropped in to rap with the Alligator staff. The Allman Brothers supported Carter and so did Hunter S. Thompson so that was enough for me.

In 1978, I moved to the West and voted there for 46 years.

Now I’m back.

My 2026 polling place was listed as the Korona Fire Station on U.S. 1. I remembered the town of Korona as a blip on the road from Ormond to Bunnell. Its firehouse was a tiny station that you get to before you hit the town. The Flagler County supervisor of elections sent us flyers reminding us that the station was “permanently closed” for firefighting purposes but will be open for voting. My first instinct was the curse the GOPers in charge of Florida for shutting down both fire stations and polling places. I’ve been so depressed since Trump’s 2024 win that I blame first, and then check it out. I’ll have to work on that.

I documented our voting experience in my Aug. 19 post. It was very pleasant. I looked up Korona on Wikipedia (Hey Wiki – I’m wearing my [edit] T-shirt!). It directed me to the Flagler County Historical Society where I looked up their info on Korona. Its history was written by the Sisco Deen, late of Korona. The historical research library at the museum is named for him. I e-mailed the society and thanked them for the info and they emailed back. Here’s some of what they sent me:

So glad to hear from you and your interest in Korona. The town was indeed the first planned Polish settlement in the State of Florida. St. Johns County Commissioner Isaac Moody purchased 40,000 acres in the area of what is now Bunnell in 1906 and hired marketer Thomas Verdenius from Chicago to sell city houses and farmsteads to people in Chicago. Verdenius had all of his marketing information translated into Polish and sent into a community of Polish immigrants outside of Chicago who had been farmers in Europe. In 1913 the first wave came down to investigate. In 1914 the first group moved down. They built St. Mary's Church in 1914 - the church still stands today. For the past month we have been speaking with descendants of the original Polish settlers to expand our knowledge base of the community.

This is like a gold nugget to writers who incorporate history in their work. The first planned Polish settlement in the State of Florida? Wow! What did those newly-arrived Poles, living in smoggy and crowded Chicago, think of muggy and buggy Florida? Some returned immediately to Illinois, some tried it out and then returned, and some stayed. The ones that toughed it out built a church which still stands today, according to Ed Siarkowicz, president of the Flagler County Historical Society. I plan on visiting the museum in the near future. 

So what is a fiction writer to make of this? First, my always practical wife Chris asked, “So where will they build the new fire station?” The question rolling around in my mind was this: “What would a young Polish kid, one who knew a dozen English words, make of this swampy, bug-infested place?” Some rich writing material there. I also had to wonder what Poles settling in 1914 Florida might think of the Great War about to erupt all around their old homes overseas. If the young immigrant was anywhere near conscription age, he would thank his lucky stars. He might end up fighting in the U.S. Army but his homeland would not be under assault. And should that boy grow up and have his own family, his sons might be in the U.S. Army fighting Nazis who were murdering every Pole in sight and then, later, the Russians arrived to continue the killing. He might have relatives in the Warsaw Ghetto. He might have relatives who were Nazi or Commie sympathizers. Maybe they would return to their homeland to see the first Polish-born pope or get to see firebrand Lech Walesa in action.

I will keep all that in mind when I visit the Historical Society, 204 E. Moody Boulevard in Bunnell. It’s open for walk-ins on Wednesdays, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. You can also schedule an appointment. Mr. Siarkowicz supplied me with plenty of accessibility info and I thank him for that. I love these community museums. Such care is taken to preserve the past and usually funding is scarce.

During my arts and humanities stint in Wyoming, I worked with many of these organizations. You find oddities, like the two-story outhouse in the Grand Encampment Museum in Carbon County. Two-story? The volunteer docent in Encampoment may ask you if you know anything about winter snow totals in the Sierra Madre Mountains? Then the answer will come to you.

You never know what inner fire you may ignite with a story from the past.

I say zeppelins, you say dirigibles

Signal Corps Dirigible No. 1, U.S. Army, circa 1908

I found this nifty photo of the Army Signal Corps' first airship. I don't know the photographer's name. Thomas Scott Baldwin designed the SC-1 at the urging of Chief Signal Officer Brigadier James Allen who had seen one of Baldwin's dirigibles at an air show in 1907. The SC-1 was based in Fort Omaha, Nebraska, and drew big crowds whenever its tiny engine propelled the hydrogen-powered dirigible from its hanger. This photo was taken between 1908 and 1912, when the army's only airship was scrapped. The Army brass saw no further use for it.

Postcard featuring the Baldwin Dirigible. It is part of a set collected in a scrapbook entitled Album Gravures et Cartes-Postales: Vieux Paris Types Petits Métiers et Cris De La Rue (1909).

Meanwhile, in Germany, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin patented his plans for a rigid airship in 1895 and the first working model, the LZ-1, made its maiden flight in 1900. By 1912, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin had built 14 hydrogen airships, one in use for passenger travel and another in the Kaiser's navy. More were on the way. When the Great War began in September 1914, Germany wasted little time in sending zeppelins LZ-3 and LZ-4 on a Jan. 19, 1915 bombing raid over Yarmouth and Norfolk. Four dead on the ground and 16 injured. It was the first aerial bombing of civilians in modern warfare. 

A note on language: According to Wiktionary, Dirigible comes from the French  ballon dirigeable (“steerable balloon”). Zeppelin comes from the last name of Count von Zeppelin and his manufacturing company, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin.